Main Menu

PLEASANTLY SURPRISED BY THE NEW STAR TREK: DISCOVERY SERIES

Started by Jim_Campbell, 10 October, 2017, 06:53:24 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Mardroid

Quote from: Dandontdare on 02 February, 2019, 08:54:37 AM
Quote from: Funt Solo on 02 February, 2019, 04:06:10 AM
I just can't think of them being in the same universe because the tech in this is so much beyond anything they had in TOS.
My issue with this (common) criticism, is that warp drive and transporters aside, the tech we have NOW is beyond TOS! Discovery is "the future imagined from a 2018 perspective" whilst TOS was "the future imagined from a 1960s perspective".

I've recently been watching a lot of TNG, and there's an episode where the big reveal is that the computer has been infected with a program that is spreading from system to system .. almost like ... a virus - cutting edge in the 80s, but now you just wonder why they don't have any anti-malware running.

While I largely agree with that, I found myself puzzled by the prevalence of holographic communications technology in Discovery. I don't really have an issue with holographic tech existing in this time period, but it does seem to be used too much here. In the recent episode, a bloke accuses Captain Pike of being like his grandmother by 'communicating by screen'. They ALWAYS communicated via screen, even in the spin-off shows! Holographic communication became a larger thing in the later series of DS9 and that seemed to be only for specific situations.

I'd just about buy the idea that they used holographic communication on Discovery due to it being a cutting edge science vessel* but that reference from the prison bloke in episode 3 suggested all the hip kids were using it.

*not too much of a stretch. One of the lecturers at my university mentioned 'blue ray technology' and even gave me a good layman's understanding of it. This was just before ordinary DVDs came out (or maybe they'd just come out? I don't think so, though) and a good few years (maybe even a decade) before blu-Ray actually appeared.

Dandontdare

Actually there is one thing that puzzles me in this regard - I'd completely forgotten about this character as they only ever get the odd line of routine dialogue - is that a cyborg or an android on the bridge? (Not the cool pilot, the fully metal-faced one) - Cyborg would be fine, but as Noonien Soong has probably not been born yet, and he was light years ahead of his time in creating Data, I find it implausible that an android would be serving on a pre-TOS ship.

JamesC

I didn't enjoy that episode much.
Every scene Amy Adams was in was just painful. She has this portentous way of delivering lines which just sucks all the energy out.
I liked seeing the Klingons again though, and hope we get to see the battle cruiser in action.

broodblik

Episode 3 was a real mix bag. The section on Discovery I just find annoying and it is all due to one character that I cannot see which value she adds to the story - Ensign Sylvia Tilly. If I was the captain I would teleport her right into the nearest pulsar. The Klingon/section 31 side of the story was much more interesting.
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

Dandontdare


JamesC

In an episode in which someone had their brain taken over by a sentient fungal parasite, the thing that stretched my suspension of disbelief to breaking point was Tilley winning the half-marathon race.

blackmocco

Quote from: Dandontdare on 02 February, 2019, 02:34:02 PM
Actually there is one thing that puzzles me in this regard - I'd completely forgotten about this character as they only ever get the odd line of routine dialogue - is that a cyborg or an android on the bridge? (Not the cool pilot, the fully metal-faced one) - Cyborg would be fine, but as Noonien Soong has probably not been born yet, and he was light years ahead of his time in creating Data, I find it implausible that an android would be serving on a pre-TOS ship.

She is an "augmented human" according to the show's writers.
"...and it was here in this blighted place, he learned to live again."

www.BLACKMOCCO.com
www.BLACKMOCCO.blogspot.com

Leigh S

One thing I find frustrating is how little we know those Bridge characters.

Tilly is fine as a scientist character - I find her more bizarre as the youngest ever person on the "Leadership fastpath" or what have you, as she is clearly utterly unsuited to Command.

broodblik

Tilly in the real world will not survive in command but in sci-fi everything is possible.
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

Dandontdare

Good job it's a sci-fi entertainment then, rather than ... well,  I'm not sure what else you would be worried about?

Leigh S

Plausibility in a character's "journey"?  Command is a certain set of skills that they go a fair way to show she struggles with, then simultaneously tell us she is the youngest ever to get on Leadership pathway... just seems an odd way to take the character?  Sure, it's sci-fi, but this is basic characterisation - if everyone started speaking backwards for no discernable reason, I could say it was just part of the sci-fi, but it would make no more sense.  Let me make it clear, I quite like Tilly, but I like her because she struggles with the basics that would make it hard to hold down her science role, let alone a command role

Quote from: Dandontdare on 02 February, 2019, 08:03:21 PM
Good job it's a sci-fi entertainment then, rather than ... well,  I'm not sure what else you would be worried about?

blackmocco

#431
Quote from: Leigh S on 02 February, 2019, 10:37:35 PM
Plausibility in a character's "journey"?  Command is a certain set of skills that they go a fair way to show she struggles with, then simultaneously tell us she is the youngest ever to get on Leadership pathway... just seems an odd way to take the character?  Sure, it's sci-fi, but this is basic characterisation - if everyone started speaking backwards for no discernable reason, I could say it was just part of the sci-fi, but it would make no more sense.  Let me make it clear, I quite like Tilly, but I like her because she struggles with the basics that would make it hard to hold down her science role, let alone a command role

Quote from: Dandontdare on 02 February, 2019, 08:03:21 PM
Good job it's a sci-fi entertainment then, rather than ... well,  I'm not sure what else you would be worried about?

Never mind. Couldn't delete it.
"...and it was here in this blighted place, he learned to live again."

www.BLACKMOCCO.com
www.BLACKMOCCO.blogspot.com

The Legendary Shark


She seems too old to be the youngest command trainee. The youngest real life naval captain I ever heard of was David Farragut (who shares my birthday, July 5, but in 1801), who took command of a captured trophy ship at age 12. He rose to the rank of admiral in the US Navy.

Even Wesley Crusher wasn't that good!

[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]




Dandontdare

Leigh - I take your point entirely (but hell, if we can credit Wesley fucking Crusher piloting the flagship of Starfleet...) but my comment was entirely a reply to broodblik's post above about the 'real world'

edgeworthy

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 03 February, 2019, 01:28:30 AM

She seems too old to be the youngest command trainee. The youngest real life naval captain I ever heard of was David Farragut (who shares my birthday, July 5, but in 1801), who took command of a captured trophy ship at age 12. He rose to the rank of admiral in the US Navy.

Even Wesley Crusher wasn't that good!

There's nothing really unusual about a Midshipman commanding a prize, however its not a permanent position.

The youngest man to hold the Rank of Captain in the history in the history of the US Navy was Stephen Decatur, at 25. However, Horatio Nelson was a Captain at 21, and Master and Commander of a ship at 20.

Probably the record is Josiah Nisbet at 17, which might have had something to do with his being Nelson's Stepson.